Читать книгу The Peacock Feather. A Romance онлайн

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Next came a much younger woman in a car, with a small boy beside her. This was Millicent Sheldon; the boy was her nephew. General Carden’s blue eyes were a little hard as he observed her, and there was just a suspicion of stiffness in his arm as he raised his hat. She responded with a slightly frigid bow, her face entirely immovable. There were reasons—most excellently good reasons—why there was a certain chilliness between these [Pg 61]two. They need not, however, be recorded at the moment.

Many other carriages and cars passed whose occupants General Carden knew, also a few foot-passengers, grey-haired veterans like himself, who walked upright and rather stiff, or younger men slightly insouciant of manner.

As his car was turning out of the Park another carriage turned in. In it was a young woman and an older one—much older; in fact, rather dried up and weather-beaten. This time General Carden did not raise his hat, though he observed the two women with interest. He had frequently noticed the carriage and its occupants during his morning drives in the Park. The younger woman attracted him. It was not merely the fact that she was beautiful, but there was an air of distinction about her, a well-bred distinguished air, that appealed to this old critic of women and manners. The men on the box wore cockades in their hats and plum-coloured livery. There was also a tiny coronet on the panel of the carriage door. In spite of the fact that General Carden’s sight was not entirely what it once had been, he noticed the coronet. He noticed, too, that the woman’s hair was black with [Pg 62]blue lights in it, that her skin was a pale cream, and her mouth a delicious and quite natural scarlet; also that her small well-bred head was exquisitely set on a slender but young and rounded throat, and that it, in its turn, was set quite delightfully between her shoulders. There is no gainsaying the fact that General Carden was a very distinct connoisseur in matters feminine. He wondered who she was, and even after the carriage had passed he thought of her very finished appearance with pleasure. And it was by no means the first time that he had wondered, nor the first that he had experienced the feeling of pleasure at the sight of her.